Keep Prison Single Sex closing

[TinselAngel]

Just announced on Twitter.

x.com/noxyinxxprisons/status/1798973161276412028?s=46&t=PSGltfjrMyZmBtYq2-AVIQ

"After considerable thought we have decided to close KPSS down. Our last day of operation will be 30th June 2024.

We have agreed that Kate will continue to support and work with the individual prisoners, former offenders, and CJS whistleblowers with whom we have relationships. Kate is contacting everyone individually to advise them of this.

We have some materials still available and can post these out to whomever wants them: our email address will remain live, so please use this to contact us. All reports and leaflets are also available on our website which, together with our Vimeo, we will maintain as a resource, although content will not be updated.

It is no longer possible to make a donation to KPSS and all regular donations have been cancelled - however, please do check your own accounts. Our PayPal account is now closed. Both KPSS shops have been closed.

KPSS USA is unaffected by this decision. Their work will continue. Please give them a follow @NoXY_USA Any funds remaining after closing down KPSS will be transferred to them.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Between us we achieved some truly great things, including two Ministry of Justice policy changes that centre the safety and rights of women in prison. Be proud of what you have done, because none of what KPSS achieved would have been possible without you."

One of the problems is that the EqA and GRA cannot be the basis for safeguarding. Its not possible to balance the rights of a girl needing intimate care and the rights of a man to hide his sex, or the rights of women in prison with the rights of men in prison.

I don't believe that the GRA is as strong as we are lead to believe because minsters had no problem introducing policy that stops grc holders convicted of violent crime being placed in the womens prison. The ECHR didnt stop that policy. The question should be why was that arbitrary line drawn there? Where is the evidence that a grc holders convicted of tax fraud arent a threat. Would the ECHR force us to ignore safeguarding?

One of the problems is that the EqA and GRA cannot be the basis for safeguarding. Its not possible to balance the rights of a girl needing intimate care and the rights of a man to hide his sex, or the rights of women in prison with the rights of men in prison.

Got it. Safeguarding has to come first.

But for a humans rights organisation It's not that straightforward?

I don't believe that the GRA is as strong as we are lead to believe because minsters had no problem introducing policy that stops grc holders convicted of violent crime being placed in the womens prison.

Or female holders inheriting a title over their younger brothers.

Even these last few posts show why the conversation has to be had. We need to be very careful about spending time and energy only to find we were at a dead end all along. SM need to have a serious rethink of their position, it seems.

I think this is the key to the difference between Sex Matters and KPSS. The former is rights based and the latter safeguarding based.

I know this sounds almost comically simplistic, but why is sex matters a human rights organisation? Why can't they just be a feminist organisation?

Then this need to balance the rights of men over women's safety would disappear.

Because at some point, they're going to run out of road, surely?

I still want to know the specific situation where legal sex trumps women's safeguarding.

I think SM had to be a human rights organisation for becoming a charity? Or that's what they picked. Anyway, IIRC Stonewall is also a human rights charity. Didn't stop them seemingly saying nothing about the impact of all this on sexual orientation during the passage of the EQA and GRA. Also didn't stop them lobbying to remove women and girls' sex based rights. So quite why SM seems to be beginning from a point of compromise with people who will not stop until are rights are eliminated, is baffling.

Wonderfully succinctly put. This has been apparent for quite sometime but I’m not sure how widely understood this is.

The GRA is a ridiculous piece of law, the idea that it cannot be repealed only makes sense if you think that no laws can ever change. It might be hard but definitely possible.

Yes, exactly - and hence why (presumably) Sex Matters is taking this approach. I don't think there's necessarily a conflict between rights and safeguarding here.

The problem with repealing the GRA is that doing so would put us immediately in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights

What human right is breached by removing a law that provides a certificate to obtain a false birth certificate?

I always think about when there was some talk of England's top football clubs leaving the premier league to join some kind of European super league a few years ago, and the government were like "we'll change whatever laws we need to, to stop this happening". So when the government really want to change a law they're happy to say they can do so.

But how, without leaving the ECHR (which would be massively damaging to our legal human rights framework and indeed to our national reputation)?

Of course I guess there could be a change in the direction of ECHR caselaw in this area, but I don't see any signs of it and am not sure how the UK would influence this (but would be great to hear the views of any posters who are more familiar with the European Court of Human Rights and its jurisprudence).

Presumably there weren't any human rights implications here, though? It's Article 8 of the ECHR (right to privacy and family life) that was the basis of the Goodwin judgment that meant the UK had to pass the GRA, IIRC.

The issue, for me is, "We do not think that we can solve the conflation between sex and self-declared “gender identity” so simply, since GRCs give holders the right to be considered as members of the opposite sex for certain legal purposes."

What legal purposes? Specifically. And who decides?

Why should there be any legal situations where women are expected to say a man is a woman in order to validate his own self image?

because that's beyond even 'be kind'. It's legally stipulated.

Self Id is inevitable because it is a basic human right and there is no evidence of any detrimental effects to society. It actually improves things for all.

You just have to think of things as a risk assessment and we know trans people are more at risk than they are a risk. The whole modern period of history proves that.

I don’t think a safeguarding only approach works either. Where do you draw the line on that? Safeguarding is about degrees of risk, and if you push it to the nth degree you end up in a totalitarian state. That is why human rights are important too. The problem so far with the human rights approach, including the EHRC judgement which led to the GRA, is only the human rights of men seem to be considered. The human rights of women gets ignored.

"It's Article 8 of the ECHR (right to privacy and family life) that was the basis of the Goodwin judgment that meant the UK had to pass the GRA, IIRC."

Wasn't the issue that same sex marriage wasn't allowed? It is available now, so no need for false ID.

There's no human right to pretend to be the opposite sex.

I can't believe our choice is to allow pretence or throw out our human rights framework altogether. That's bonkers!

Here is a good example of where someone is only considering the human rights of men.

And once again we get the lie that ‘trans people are more at risk than they are a risk’ ignoring the fact that there are more trans murderers than there are trans people murdered (or than trans people are at the lowest risk of murder of any demographic). Or the fact that men who self ID as women are several times more likely to commit a sexual offence than other men, and yet men make up 99% of offenders and women 88% of victims.

Don't be silly Fred. Given the picture I accidentally saw of you on Twitter this week which I fear is burned into my memory, I have no idea what you are doing on a parenting forum.

I suggest we don't allow Fred to derail this thread about KPSS with his simplistic arguments circa 2019.

As the argument for it has fallen away, maybe we need to come at this from another direction.

"The GRA was never on the statute books, nor was the PC of GR. X party is now promising this as part of their manifesto.

Justify it"

That kind of way of looking at it?

People can self-ID as what they like. Whether other people have to recognise that identity or whether that identity should confer any rights is an entirely different question. It’s obvious that self-IDing as a woman shouldn’t mean being housed in a female prison, any more than an adult identifying as a child would be housed in a YOC

I believe the purposes originally contemplated were for tax, pensions, and marriage (no longer relevant), for specific regulations that mention sex (eg HSE regulations for workplace toilets), and sex discrimination law (as per Haldane, although that is under appeal - and IMO the protection under the gender reassignment heading is at least as good and doesn't require a GRC).

The EA has built-in get-out clauses for treating people as of their real sex, even if they have a GRC, but they don't get used. Why not?

Stonewall lobbying

The existence of a GRC is private - and this has a knock-on effect on treatment of people without GRCs

Women-only provision has not been made mandatory in any situation, either by legislation or by case law

Someone contrasted human rights with safeguarding, but they are two sides of the same coin. The rights of a trans woman, to have female ID, to be accommodated with females, etc are all in conflict with the safeguarding of women from male superior strength, aggression and criminality, and the rights of women to certain concessions intended to mitigate physical differences, historical disadvantage etc.

I understand the potential problems were pointed out before the GRA was even passed. I for one was taking no notice 😳.

It's a shame KPSS has chosen to close. Policy wise they did great work. I will say, the first time I saw KC was on a TV interview, where she was fairly petulant and stormed off. There may have been good reason, I can't remember, I just remember being surprised at how unprofessional she seemed. Then I noticed a similar approach via the Twitter account, lots of accusations about other GC organisations etc. I worked as a lobbyist years ago. Being invited to meetings is not in the gift of other attendees. Yes they can suggest, but you are invited due to steady communications and building relationships with politicians and officials. Trust that you are professional is also important. It's the suffragettes v the suffragists. Kate is a suffragette, SM and others suffragists. The movement needs both.

The problem with repealing the GRA is that doing so would put us immediately in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights

The GRA itself is in breach of ECHR by not allowing females the same rights as males.

Nobody gives a shit about that due to it only affecting females.

It's a common theme.